


arco iris de colores

by madnessandbrilliance



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Motorcycle Chase, and it shines from different places on different people, dual pistol lance/leandro, meet cute, motorcyclist keith/akira, sort of a soulmate au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 00:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15718554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessandbrilliance/pseuds/madnessandbrilliance
Summary: The rider suddenly reaches into their pack with one hand and slides another matching pistol into the hand Leandro has on their waist before gripping the handlebars and making another wild turn. “Just shut up and trust me!”As if.But Leandro must be more naïve than he thinks, or just plain stupid. He takes a deep breath, clicks the safety off the second pistol, then… lets go.





	arco iris de colores

**Author's Note:**

> I had to run and get a Leakira fic while I was still inspired. Inspired by the Rebel AU, @captainlumin 's beautiful Leakira first meeting art, and the concept going around about [quintessence and emotion](https://twitter.com/tearjoonie/status/1029369183346274304). Originally published on twitter, then passed onto here.

When Leandro was six years old, his mother filled their tiny Cuban kitchen with indigo light that pulsed to the beat of her heart. 

He had watched as the normally sunflower yellow walls brightened and dimmed in the dark blue of his mother’s soul, and her gentle fingers guided his own over her heart, where the light was brightest. “This is the color of my quintessence,” she’d explained, and he had stumbled over the pronunciation even as his eyes never left the glow of her chest. “We all have light within us,  _ neno _ . It shines brightest when we know ourselves, but never leaves us.”

“Quin-a-tiss-es.” He’d tried, and she’d smiled. “What does my light look like?”

“I don’t know. Your color will come someday, when you’re older.” The light seemed to dim as she stepped away from her son. “Everyone has a color. It doesn’t always shine the same way, but it will shine when you are happiest, or most confident. When your soul is truest to itself. Mine shines from here,” she’d motioned to her heart, “but it can be different.”

“I want mine to be there too,” Leandro had declared, with the obstinance of a six year old. She only laughed.

“We’ll see,  _ mi niño hermoso. _ We’ll see.”

\--

His quintessence didn't shine from his heart, like he’s hoped. He’d grown up watching his mothers mother's dark blue and his father’s tawny gold combine into a muted, earthy green every time they embraced, but his own light shone from his fingertips, his hands, and the thin veins in his wrist. His light was a paler blue than his mother's, a bright cerulean that paired beautifully with the varying rainbow shades of his family.

“We got lucky that all our colors look nice next to each other,” his sister Elena had mumbled as all his siblings compared the glow of their souls under the star filled Havana sky. Lilac, magenta, sunset orange. The sea green emitting from her long hair had flared around his blue as he tugged on one of her curls. “Do you think your soulmate will have a color that will be ugly to blend with?”

“I hope not,” Leandro said. “But I guess I won't find out for a while.”

When he finally leaves Cuba, days after his nineteenth birthday, all of his family’s colors are muted. His own hands flicker, a mixture of fear and excitement.

“I’ll be fine,  _ Mamí, _ ” he presses, but doesn't move to fight off her nervous fluttering. His siblings crowd him, his father smiles.

“I know,  _ mi hermoso _ . But it's my job to worry.” He takes her hand from where it has cupped his cheek and brings it to his heart. Where he had first told her he wished his quintessence would be.

“I’ll be back. I promise.”

\--

The United States is much bigger than he’d anticipated. He’d  _ known _ it was big, of course, but  _ how  _ big had escaped him until he gets a glimpse of his first North American city through the glass of the train window. Towering skyscrapers and neon lights, bullet train tracks that circled every building-- it’s so different from the sleepy air of his little  _ pueblo _ outside Havana that he feels his heart begin to race. All he has is his knapsack and a vague idea of what he is looking for.

He gets off in the middle of the bustling metropolis and wanders for nearly half an hour. Everything moves quickly-- the hovercars, the people, the bullet trains-- and he gets swept up in the current. Half an hour later he is standing outside a dive bar, breathless.

For a moment, everything is quiet, for the first time since he had arrived. It makes him itch for sound, of any sort. He had come looking for adventure. Where would he find it?

Then there’s a roar, a shatter of breaking glass, an unfamiliar distant pinging sound he thinks he's heard in movies. He covers his eyes and stumbles back as the roar reaches a deafening crescendo and bright white headlight blind him.

“Who the hell are you?”

Leandro blinks and lowers his arms. A glistening red motorbike purrs in front of him, headlights finally angled away. Its rider sits atop the bike, clad in leather, face hidden behind a gleaming black helmet with twin points erect on each side, like cat ears. It would be cute if the rider didn't look so dangerous.

He doesn't flinch away, instead straightening and staring the rider down. The rider seems to huff at his lack of response. “I asked who you were! What are you doing in this part of town? It's a death sentence right now!”

Leandro finally finds his voice. “I was just walking, I didn't--"

There is another pinging sound, and the dirt erupts from a patch a few feet away from the motorcycle. The rider curses. “No time.” They rev the engine and the bike roars again. “I don't know you, but unless you want to die from those drones back there, get on my bike.”

“ _ What _ ?”

Several other pinging sound, and more patches of dirt erupt, narrowly missing Leandro. He stumbles back.  _ Laser guns _ , he realizes.

“Hurry!”

It's stupid, he knows, but one glance to the side shows several glowing drones zipping towards them, flashes of lasers rushing towards them intermittently. Without thinking, he rushes forward and swings his leg over the bike. “Hold on,” the rider says, and Leandro has to throw his arms around the leather clad waist in front of them. Suddenly the world is a blur around him.

Bright lights and vague shapes dissolve into streaks as the rider takes them shooting down the road. Behind them, Leandro still hears the sound of lasers being fired. He realizes he’s clinging tightly to the rider, and he loosens his grip slightly. “What’s going on?” He shouts over the wind, sure the sound of his voice was lost to the wind, but to his surprise the rider answers, shouting to be heard.

“Trouble! Galra drones!”

“ _ Galra?! Here?! _ ”

“Yes! Now hold on!”

Leandro yelps as the rider takes a viciously sharp turn, the bike tilting nearly parallel to the ground and their knees almost scraping the cement road. They straighten and Leandro turns his head to see a pair of drones crash into the side of the building they narrowly missed.

“In my pack,” The rider shouts again. Leandro has to strain his ears to hear, even though the wind carries his voice back. “There are two pistols! Can you shoot?”

“Can I  _ what?!” _

Two more shots sound past them and Leandro feels one brush his ear. His heart skips a beat. “Never mind that!” The rider speeds up. “Just get the guns and shoot behind us!”

Leandro wants to protest, but at this point he doesn't know how. Instead he reaches for the strapped pack around his savior’s hips and immediately feels the sleek handle of a pistol. He’d only ever held small stun guns before but he recognizes the shape of a gun when he feels it. He pulls it out, keeping the other arm wound tightly around the rider’s waist.

“I got it!”

“Now take the safety off and  _ shoot _ !”

Leandro clicks the safety off the pistol and aims blindly behind them, firing a pair of shots wildly into the air. There is no pause in the drones shots at them.

“You're going to have to get the other one and turn around! There are too many of them! I’ll make sure you don’t fall off!”

“Are you  _ insane! _ ?”

The rider suddenly reaches into their pack with one hand and slides another matching pistol into the hand Leandro has on their waist before gripping the handlebars and making another wild turn. “Just shut up and trust me!”

_ As if _ .

But Leandro must be more naïve than he thinks, or just plain stupid. He takes a deep breath, clicks the safety off the second pistol, then… lets go.

It feels like time slows down as he turns in his seat, knees clenching the body of the bike, and aims both guns behind them. The drones-- there are eight of them-- continue their firing. Leandro takes a deep breath.

_ One. Two. Three.  _ Shot after shot. He lines up the drones in his sights, and shoots from both guns. At first they go wild, but as he gets used to the kick and the strange angle he is shooting from, they become more accurate. One drone goes down, then two.

There is a swell in his chest as he picks the machines off. The rush of air moving past him, the warmth of the rider in front of him, the weight of the guns in his hands. He finds himself grinning without knowing it. An excited whoop rips from his throat. His fingers around the barrel of the guns shine blue.

“Only one left,” he cries over his shoulder, and the rider revs the bike again.

“Can you get it?”

Leandro only scoffs in response, once again probably lost to the wind. He aims once more.

“Hold on!”

The bike suddenly swerves in another sharp turn, and Leandro feels himself sliding. He barely has time to think,  _ fuck _ , before the back of his jacket is gripped tightly, swinging him up out of his fall. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the drone light up, powering up to fire, and he shoots without thinking. It explodes.

He gasps as the bike straightens and suddenly comes to a halt. The roar drops to a purr again. They're somewhere in the outskirts of the city, the surroundings silent except for his and the rider’s panting.

“Are you okay?”

“Holy  _ shit _ ,” Leandro gasps, and he stumbles off the bike, the hand on the back of his jacket falling away as he falls to the floor and immediately pops back up on shaky legs. He spins around to look at the rider, who seems to be staring at him. Not that he can tell through the helmet. “Did you just make a turn like that with one hand? While holding on to me?!”

“Yeah,” they say, and Lance imagines hearing a grin in their voice. “Did you just shoot eight drones off the back of a speeding motorbike, the last one in the middle of a nearly horizontal turn?”

“Holy  _ shit! _ ” Leandro repeats, gripping the top of his hair with a hysterical laugh. “I did!”

“That was pretty impressive.”

“You're one to talk,” Leandro comes to stand in front of the rider. “That was amazing! We’re a pretty good team, aren’t we?”

“Considering we just met fifteen minutes ago? I say we are.”

Leandro just stands there, beaming, before something occurs to him. The smile drops off his face. “Oh my God,” he says in quiet horror. “I just did all that without a helmet.”

Silence, then a burst of laughter. Before Leandro can process what is happening, the rider is reaching up and tugging the helmet off their head. Shaggy black locks in a haphazard ponytail are revealed, along with a gleaming, sharp smile and violet eyes. Leandro’s breath  _ whooshes  _ out of him.

“Next time,” says the most beautiful boy Leandro has ever seen, “I’ll give you the helmet.”

Leandro blinks at him before returning his smile. “Deal,” he says, scratching the back of his neck before extending a hand. They're still glowing blue, he notes, and he can tell by the way the other boy’s eyes linger on them that he has of course noticed as well. “I'm Leandro, by the way.”

He expects the boy to reach out and shake his hand, but to his surprise, he reaches down and pulls off one of his gloves. A glow of red suddenly fills the air, emitting from his fingertips. Leandro’s breath catches.

Carefully, as if scared that if he moves too fast Leandro will disappear, the rider reaches out with his ungloved hand and takes Leandro’s extended one. Instead of shining next to each other, scarlet and cerulean, the points where their hands meet burst into a bright purple light. Leandro meets the other boy’s eyes over the point of their blended colors. Their joined quintessence.

“Hi, Leandro,” The boy smiles, dangerous but warm, and strangely familiar. “My name is Akira.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me (and this ficlet) on my [Tumblr](http://madness-and-brilliance.tumblr.com/) and my [VLD Twitter](https://twitter.com/Loverboyklance)


End file.
